Barbuto Cookbook

Waxman Jonathan Waxman

Description

A culinary exploration of Barbuto's menu-a unique blend of rustic Italian and modern California cuisine-from legendary chef Jonathan Waxman There are very few New York City restaurants that have maintained their currency, quality, and charm for as long as Jonathan Waxman's Barbuto. For the irst time ever, The Barbuto Cookbook invites home cooks into the history, culture, and cuisine of the Greenwich Village dining spot that became both a neighborhood favorite and a New York culinary destination. Jonathan and his team provide the necessary tools for re-creating Barbuto classics, including the famous JW roast chicken, the otherworldly kale salad, specialty pizzas, gnocchi, spectacular desserts, and much more. Every recipe is a iavorful restaurant showstopper adapted for straightforward preparation at home.

Sujets

• TV
• Televisión
• Television
• Italy
• My Last Duchess
• California

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 29 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781647001452
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 13 Mo

Extrait

CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY MARCUS SAMUELSSON
INTRODUCTION
PIZZE
ANTIPASTI Includes Soups!
SALADS
PRIMI ~ PASTA, RISOTTO AND GRAINS
FISH AND SEAFOOD
POULTRY
CARNE
CONTORNI ~ VEGETABLES
SAUCES, OILS, AND PESTOS
COCKTAILS
PASTRY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX OF SEARCHABLE TERMS
FOREWORD
When I came to New York in the 1990s as a young cook, Food Network was just starting, and the next generation after Jacques P pin was emerging. There were new celebrity chefs, and Jonathan Waxman was the coolest of them all. He was cooking for John McEnroe, and all these famous people. He was cooking asparagus, chicken, dump-lings, duck, the best food highs you can think of. He was the chef with the blue Ferrari. And we re still chasing that blue Ferrari.
Jonathan is the embodiment of an American chef. He comes from an artistic background-he didn t start out only in food, as the European chefs do. He brings a mix of California and New York, and Europe, too. He is an amazing friend and father. And when I think about Jonathan as an American chef, I think how he brings rock and roll with a touch of jazz to his food.
There s a kindness and warmth around him. You can have a conversation about anything at all, and it will eventually come around to food. You can ask Jonathan about what it was like when California Cuisine emerged, what the food at Michael s was like in the late seventies and early eighties, cooking that still informs American cuisine today. And Jonathan can tell you all about it, because he was in it. He was one of the first to look at California Cuisine in the same way we view the food of Paris, and he is comfortable in both those worlds.
You can talk to Jonathan about London, where he has worked extensively with wines. When I opened there a number of years ago, the first person I asked for advice was Jonathan. He connected me to incredible people, and he set me up to feel comfortable in London.
Jonathan can talk with Thomas Keller or Ruth Reichl with equal ease. When you go to an event with him, everyone comes up to hug him. You learn a lot by how people are greeted. Whether it s Nancy Silverton or Jess Shadbolt, Clare de Boer, and Annie Shi, the young British chefs who have opened King in New York City; or Justin Smillie from Upland; they all greet Jonathan as a close friend.
Another thing I love about Jonathan is his love for his family. To be a chef is to be away a lot. We talk about that on the road. He talks about his kids, his family. It s so hard to do what we do, while it s also a privilege. I love when Jonathan tells me about his kids, because I know how hard he works and how much he misses dinners with them. And I can t tell you how many restaurant kids Jonathan has-those he has raised in the industry. Ask Bobby Flay or Aar n S nchez who comes to mind when they think about their mentor. It s Jonathan. The blue Ferrari seems small compared with all that.
I see Jonathan Waxman and I envision an incredible picnic, with dozens of chefs and food lovers, people who speak the language of food, gathered together. That s what he created in Barbuto. No borders, not New York, or Paris, or Rome, just great food and the people who are drawn to it.
It s the restaurant where we all want to sit and eat gnocchi with asparagus and peas, and roasted chicken. It s got comfort and finesse, warmth, and obvious compassion-and I m not only talking about the chef. You see it in the dishwashers and the servers, the cooks on the line, the people who are so vital to this industry. And many of them have been at Barbuto since the beginning. Just think for a moment about Luis Ruiz, who started as a dishwasher at Jonathan s restaurant Washington Park twenty years ago and is a trusted lead cook at Barbuto today.
Jonathan exemplifies what it means to be a chef, just as Barbuto embodies what the word restaurant means: to restore the body and the community. It s a place where we come to see one another, to walk table to table. I recall those last days at the original location; there was so much warmth and familiarity. There s no passport. Race, sexuality, religion don t matter. It s just about people. My restaurant, the Red Rooster in Harlem, is an uptown version of that for me. That s why I started in this business. To be able to walk around and sit and talk to people. To find old friends and also to learn something new.
A great restaurant takes on the personality of its owner. You want to be in on whatever they re talking about; you want to taste the food. With Barbuto, Jonathan created that reality down on Washington Street. But there s something else: a great chef and a great restaurant have that je ne sais quoi, an indescribable quality that is largely up to the people who come to dine. It might be crazy, fun, delicious, comforting, a wide range of experiences. It s like an Almod var film, or great theater-it s just got that thing , and if you could write it down, or turn it into a formula, the restaurant might be done.
I ve experienced it myself-my wife and I have ducked into Barbuto on a rainy day, or gone to a photo exhibit upstairs. I ve been there on a chef s night out with my chef buddies, all these different experiences that make it a welcoming place and a great watering hole.
The food at Barbuto has that American rock-and-roll quality; it s light and bright, not fussy, but has really good technique. For example, the way he deep-roasts his gnocchi. If you don t roast it in a hot pan, you don t get that crust. And he starts with frozen gnocchi, to help form that crust. He also relies heavily on the farmer s market for ingredients. I ve gone with him. It s amazing; he knows all the purveyors, knows their stories. It s different from buying in a store. The menu at Barbuto exists because of the farmer s market.
Jonathan is part of a group of people who are the reason I started in food. I think of Leah Chase, Jonathan Gold, and Anthony Bourdain-people who have so much knowledge; they re great storytellers, and they make experience come alive. Jonathan Waxman is in that group. I long to sit at the table and just have dinner with them all. Last year, I went out for dinner in Los Angeles with Jonathan and Chef Nyesha Arrington. Within the first two minutes of our meal, Jonathan was already deep into sharing one of his restaurant stories. Nyesha and I looked at each other and started laughing. These are really people stories, and Jonathan will never stop telling them.
I don t know what the future will bring. I can t predict when we ll be eating out as we used to. But I do know that we need restaurants in order to heal. We need to see one another. We need to hug one another. Cooks need to be mentored, bartenders need to have conversations and pour great wines, and servers need restaurants, even if just as a bridge to the next Broadway play. We need to be seen, need to break bread with one another. I can t wait to have that restorative meal at Barbuto. In the meantime, thanks to the book you are holding, you can create a little bit of that magic yourself at home.
Marcus Samuelsson
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY COHORT IN LIFE, FOOD, AND WINE CRAIG SCHIFFER. HE WAS THE YANG TO MY YIN.
INTRODUCTION
The West Village restaurant Barbuto has long been a gathering spot for the neighborhood. It has served as a watering hole for locals, knowledgeable New Yorkers, and visitors from all over-a place where the cares of the day-to-day disappear. In its original Washington Street location, it was truly a West Village staple, and, as of this writing, it is well on its way to earning that status again in its new home at 113 Horatio Street, a mere three hundred steps from the original.
Not a day goes by without someone asking me, What makes Barbuto special? And the true answer is that I really don t have a clue. In days past, restaurants relied on location, location, and location. Well that is not really a good explanation for Barbuto. When it first opened, the area was seedy and, honestly, scary at night. It hadn t evolved into the trendy neighborhood that it is now.
There were unsavory characters, addicts, and, in winter, a quiet destitution. I had lived in the neighborhood previously for a brief period in the early 1980s, and it hadn t changed much in twenty years. What evolved in a relatively short period of time, between 2003 and 2008, is nothing short of remarkable. Some folks claim that the renovated and gentrified meat market transformed the West Village, for better and worse. Once the blood and guts had departed (for the most part, a few, stubborn, mainly Italian stalwarts remain) then it was a natural migration west. Barbuto opened in this somewhat unstable environment. Soon the social landscape would change.
One of the true game-changing developments was the Standard Hotel. This was a pivotal moment. Andr Balazs s audacious cement-and-glass edifice over the High Line was truly magnificent. That he convinced the neighbors, planners, and city officials to allow him to build this structure is really something.
After Andr came more developers, bold architects, dandy visionaries who began to see the potential of this little part of Manhattan. Another brick in the evolutionary wall was the re-creation of the High Line itself. The seemingly unusable rail line that ran adjacent to Barbuto had become a cause c l bre in the West Village. The vast capital spent, the nerve enlisted, and the sheer guts of the visionaries who saw huge potential in a rotting, overhead railway leftover from the early twentieth century-it was nothing short of a miracle. The High Line was really the final set piece needed to change the hood. In some ways, Barbuto was an integral part of this history.
Barbuto had a humble beginning.
I never gave it much of a chance, yet in 2003, after I was kicked out of my restaurant Washington Park, I needed income. So, in February 2004, Lynn McNeely and I opened my humble caf . The premise of any new restaurant i